5/29/2013

"Your heart is like a great river after a long spell of rain, spilling over its banks. All signposts that once stood on the ground are gone, inundated and carried away by that rush of water. And still the rain beats down on the surface of the river. Every time you see a flood like that on the news you tell yourself: That's it. That's my heart."

-Haruki Murakami Kafka on the shore, translated from Japanese by Philip Gabriel

4/12/2013

- Do you know how it is to die? There is only hardly perceptible shadow left on the bricks. Sign that you were here. The sign that you were standing, right here, when the atomic bomb was dropped.

Last summer I went to Hiroshima. Although I wanted to write about my trip much earlier - I was not able to gather my own thoughts for a long time. That trip was my personal tribute to the victims of nuclear attack; for the children who died before fulfilling their dreams; for those who were injured and suffered the agony. And for the survivals who have been carrying the painful memories whole their lives and who were and are here to tell us the truth. The truth which is too dark to take in.

My visit to Hiroshima was not just a tribute-trip. I was deeply hurt by people as a child. And there was a time I thought I will never make it grow up and be an adult. Somehow I was alive and at the darkest time of my life, I called a name of God and promised Him I will never let the hatred take a control of my life and I will not let the hatred destroy me. I made it my life mission to fight for a World Peace and I went to Hiroshima to pray and ask for a strength; because of me either, as Solomon stated, "I am a mere youth, not knowing at all how to act".

I am deeply disturbed watching the news. Not only because I am living in Tokyo and my family is not close enough to go check if they are safe if something bad happens. Nor that I am afraid of my life. I am disturbed by the fact that we still did not grow up. Did not learn from past mistakes. We all want our country's economies to grow but how about ethical and moral growth? Do we really need another place like Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

-Do you know how it is to die? - die in fear, panic, and pain that crumples your body till you lose your mind?

My generation, generation of people born in 90's - we do not 'know' the war. We just see it in the news, we are taught about the war on the history lessons.

But we do not need to experience the war just to see there is only death, pain and darkness. We do not need to mourn. We do not want to hate nor be envious nor to be cruel. Nor cry and lose the ones we love.

I had traveled alone to Hiroshima because I wanted to focus in silence to truly feel and understand what had happened in 1945. What had happened, not only in Japan but in the world that day.

That day the world changed for ever.

Today is 12th April 2013. The weather in Tokyo is nice and sunny but still- the wind is a bit cold.

The sky is clear.

"The sky was clear..." - that is how a survivor of Hiroshima described the morning of 6th August 1945. He was outside of his house- playing, the day was about to start normally.

What stayed in my mind the most from Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum are the pictures made by children, reflecting their memories from that day. The pictures of the streets of Hiroshima full of red bodies without skin.

Those who did not die immediately after the atomic bomb was dropped, were injured with multipart skin burns. Many of them jumped into the river (the one you see in the photo above) to cool down their burning bodies and had drowned.

The nuclear attack on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was not only a bombing on Japan. It was an attack on every human being on this planet. We saw with our own eyes and have realized that -we- are able to make the human race extinct.

We can not let the hatred take a control of us. Because hatred not only hurts others but is destructive to ourselves.

-The one who carries the knife can kill but can be also killed by his own weapon.

Hiroshima is a peaceful place now. There are red roses growing just by the Atomic Bomb Dome. It became a place to represent and call for the World Peace.

-But if you look closely, there are still the shadows. Unnamed, watching. And their voices are saying:

3/30/2013

I miss spending Easters in my house in Poland. I didn't pay much attention to it at that time but, the table was always full and beautifully decorated. The family was together and there was always, something special about that day.
When you leave you realize how important the unimportant things were, how much meaningful the meaningless things were, how much you loved the places which were too boring and how priceless the life too random to live was.

3/28/2013

Run the hot water for meI'm coming homeI lost a warAnd I have nowhere to goany moreBut I have toI have to go back to youBecauseI can't make you sadI can't make you sad
Run the hot water for meI need to clean up my bodyfrom bloodfrom shameand from the guiltrun the hot water for me
Today I went to see Aida Makoto's works at Mori Art Museum in Roppongi. I found his gallery rather disturbing and I couldn't find the peace I was looking for. The first image is from today's exhibition. This work is called “Ash Color Mountains”. The second picture is from Numero Tokyo 15; editorial with Marcelina Sowa.

I'm moving to new place, a bigger space so I can start painting, really painting again.

3/19/2013

I hadn't been posting for a while. To be honest I'm a little confused and I don't know what to write.

So many things had changed in my life. When I started writing this blog I was still living in Poland.

Now it's already my third year in Japan.

Since I remember I have been trying to live well-controlled life. I loved making plans, to-do lists, I knew how I want to be in two, five, ten and even thirty years!

Surprisingly my moving to Japan wasn't planned at all. After two years I am still sometimes feeling a little weird when I realize I am surrounded by only asian people and I catch myself staring at gaijin (foreigner). Naturally, as born-in-Japan, mixed-race person I was lucky enough to spend whole my childhood between two countries: Poland and Japan. Well, it wasn't part of my plan too. I had been flying to Japan to visit my grandparents every two-years at mine and my older sister's summer vacation's time. When I think of it now, "summer returnings" were the happiest times of my childhood years but the same time, they gave me the most painful and heartbreaking moments when I had to leave my, getting older and smaller every year, grandmother and grandfather.

I remember watching them -waving hands- from taxi's car window. Till the moment they disappear completely. Every summer when we were not going there back, I cried and cried very hard to my mother. I wanted to go back to Japan. I wanted to live there. For me it was a land of happiness.

My father was a only-child. I had no cousins to play with in Poland. And the parents of my father passed away very early. I hated Poland. I was bullied at school, racial discriminated by my teachers and on the streets. It was a small city in southern Poland. I looked more like an asian, I had unusual, non-polish name - now I understand - it wasn't my fault but they just couldn't leave me alone. I was different than others.

Being and feeling different growing up was the reason I wanted to live a 'normal', very down-to-earth, well-controlled-life. Get married, have kids, build a house some day. So did I. Or I though I do. I found a boyfriend, we were much in love. I wanted to marry him when he returns from military which was a must at that time for young men in Poland.

But seems like it wasn't given to me to live such life. My boyfriend was a drug addict and drug dealer. He had been disappearing from time to time from home and I was going out looking for him. There were weeks of no sign from him. He escaped military service. He promised me to give up drugs but he never did. I kept believing, because he was the most intelligent person I have ever met in my life. He taught me it is ok being who you are, he was the first to compliment me I was mixed-race.

It was a time of lots of lies. Mine to my parents, his to me.

After I graduated middle school my parents send me to live and study at different, bigger city - Cracow. It wasn't planned as well. My sister, who was very ambitious from early age- attending school and music-school the same time since 7 or 8, always studying at home - she asked my parents if she can move to better high school than our small city was offering. After three years my parents decided I will follow her footsteps. Wasn't I ambitious too? I loved writing, I have been writing since I remember. But all I wanted was a life "like others have". Like my best friend who by the way is married now and is expecting their first baby.

Although I was skipping most of my classes at middle-school to enjoy my teenage-years of so precious first love, I had managed to score high marks and get into one of the best high-school in Cracow. I told my boyfriend about it, he was happy for me. He said its good for me. At that time I was hoping to keep seeing him at the weekends when I return to my "hometown". We said goodbye on the sunny day, the summer was close, I was leaving to Japan.

When I think of it now, I had never taught I was not going to see him ever since any more in my life.

He went missing soon after I left. I was trying to find him many years later but no one knew where he faded away.

My hope for stable life was gone. No love to go back to, the future we had planned together was gone forever. Year later my mother left my family to permanently live in Japan. It was the beginning for us - all of my family members to live separately. I don't know if there is anything more sad in life than going back to an empty house. The very first day I returned home on a friday and I cooked myself a dinner in an empty kitchen, I couldn't swallow any food because of the tears which I was trying to control. I kept telling myself I have to be strong. Of course I understood everything. My mother had to go to look after her parents. But it wasn't changing the fact that it wasn't a life that I wanted. Nor something I could had planned.

I seeked for stability. I wanted to take control of my own life. I couldn't live any more between two countries, two cities, living half-life not fully tasted, not knowing who I am and where I belong. I knew there are things I can not change but I wanted to gain an independency to finally run away from that circle of longing and reuniting to leave and long again. That was the first time I refused going back to Japan with my mother when she had visited us in Poland. I got engaged. I wanted to live my own life. That was the first time in my life I shouted at my mother. She left. My grandmother died few weeks later.

Today I am sitting in Tokyo. Drinking wine on my own. There is something I can not control about my life. I had been looking for a stability whole my life. But I gave up. I accepted the fact I can't do it. I finally realized, it is not because I was born mixed-race but because it is not the way to find my happiness.

My childhood tough me no one have a choice to decide who you want to be born as, my teenage love tough me I can not put all my desires and hopes in a person because some people come and go no matter how much we wish them to stay. It is that way. I must let go the things that are not controllable.

So do I have a control of my life as a grown-up? Again, no. I choose, or I was chosen to write. Magazines are not doing well. I am young and I need to decide what to do. I know how I want my career to look like, I know which direction I want to go. But.. "But" - there is always something.

So I realize it is better to keep it simple. Well-controlled life is a life being honest with yourself. Listening carefully your own voice. Not to longings, not to desires but to your own sober voice. Try and see what works. Not giving up but learning and constantly growing. When I look back, I was always trying to find someone not to feel loneliness anymore, I was always fearing of showing my true emotions. Opening up. I was caged, hurt very deeply when there was no reason to be caged nor to feel hurt. I had to learn to let go. Not to feel anger but move on to the next chapter.

Instead of well-controlled life I have chosen to live my life well. Doing what I love. Being good for other people. Writing. Working hard for my future. Dreaming. Watching stars at the warm evenings, smiling to a little cat crossing my road on the way home. Love instead of hate.

The key to the true freedom is in your heart. You have to let go the past - the pain, the people and believe in yourself. We are all born free. Free to love. Free to be happy. Free to dream and make your dreams come true. And there is no one who can take this treasures away from you. We are born with them.

When you are sad - be sad, when you want to cry - cry. When you love - love truly. Do not control it. It's a life.

10/04/2011

I don't like crowds because you can so easily lose someone, you've been looking for for so long.
Imagine you are totally free.
Free of duties, promises and encouragements. Free of worries, judgments and eyes of people. Free of trying to be beautiful. Free of trying to be slimmer, free of trying to become someone you think you should be. Free of your own body. Free of hoping for things to happen. Free of being sorry for the things which did. Free of loving someone who's no longer yours.
What would you do? How would you live?
I guess I would be sitting near the river, on the grass, looking at the cat playing with the mouse. Talking to my best friend from my childhood years with whom I wasn't able to keep in touch after I left the city. And I would say to myself:- I'm not you in my life.And I would respond:- A lot happened, I've been hurt.She just smiles and says:- SillyAnd she runs away. Disappearing into the crowd of thousands people. And I stand there looking for her. The people floods. Cats are killing their mice.
But one thing I I know for sure. Everywhere you go I will be chasing you.
I have to find myself once again.

8/20/2011

I couldn't sleep last night. Today is 20th, August. I'm 21 and 7 months years old. So now I'm closer to 22 than to 21. I look like man these days. Too bad I'm not smoking. And recently I can't drink a lot as I used to, heavy drinker no more, my stomach is crumpling and my heart beats too fast that almost scares me. I drink too much on my own.

Today I have to go buy a birthday present for my sister. Planning to go to Seibu in Shibuya.

So I couldn't sleep last night. I've been thinking of my four months in Tokyo. They passed so quickly. Partying almost every weekend from the end of April.

Still dreaming about another escape. As somewhere I desire to be there is a gold treasure I need to find. As if there is someone awaiting me. Drinking coffee at 7 AM in the morning, alone in my kitchen, looking out of window, starting new day but not being sure where and how the beginning should have took place. I had never thought days like these will come. But I guess I predicted it somehow.